June 26th - Pedro Ferreira

Pedro Ferreira (IST, Jungle AI)

Generative Modelling of Single-cell Transcriptomic Data

Abstract:

Single-cell sequencing technology holds the promise of unravelling cell heterogeneities hidden in ubiquitous bulk-level analyses. However, limitations of current experimental methods pose new obstacles that prevent accurate conclusions from being drawn. To overcome this, researchers have developed computational methods which aim at extracting the biological signal of interest from the noisy observations. In this talk, we will focus on probabilistic models designed for this task. First, we will overview the difficulties associated with the data. Then, we look at some of the generative models designed by researchers to disentangle the assumed factors of variation underlying the observations. Finally, we overview variational inference and how it helps in making these models useful for analysis.

--

Bio: Pedro F. Ferreira is an Electrical Engineering MSc student at Instituto Superior Técnico currently developing his master thesis with professors Alexandra M. Carvalho and Susana Vinga. He will be joining Jungle AI as a data scientist.